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Walking through historic Greyfriar’s kirkyard at the weekend (walking off a delicious Semla – a Swedish cream cake made only for a few weeks as part of an old Lent tradition), spotted little squirrel sprinting across the grass between the old tombstones, pausing to pick up little twigs and leaves. Couldn’t get a photo as he was too darned fast, zipping along then onto a tree, up and around to the other side. I followed him around but there was no sign of him. Then I saw movement, and noticed a small hole in a knot of of the tree trunk. And sure enough it turned out to be his little hidey-hole, and as I watched patiently he stuck his cute wee head out for a look down at me (you can see him right in the centre of the pic):

A few moments later he darted out, grabbed more of his little collection of twigs and leaves and dragged them back into his little tree home, front paws fiddling around inside while his bum and bushy tail hung out the entrance. Either that or I had just been mooned by a squirrel…

Despite the cold the light was pretty good the other weekend, so I took myself off for one of my “photo walks” in the afternoon and early evening, several hours wandering around, mostly in parts of town I’m not in too often, and taking pics as I go. You never know what you may find – down by the Stockbridge area, outside a barber’s shop, I spotted this amazing bench, made out of old skateboards – art you can use!

While this vintage clothing store and pop-up shop had a nice, slightly surreal (almost Monty Pythonesque) touch with this giant foot outside their door:

Dusk was falling as I started walking back upwards towards the heart of the New Town, passing Cafe Rouge, one of several French cafes and restaurants in the city. The outdoor seats were now all deserted, the temperature falling as night started to settle on a winter’s afternoon, and in contrast the warmth inside against the cold outside had left the windows covered in condensation:

Then I passed this small bar/bistro, and I simply couldn’t resist getting a shot of their neon sign at night:

Just around the corner from Liquor I finally took a picture of an old business on Queen Street I have meant to shoot for years, mostly because the lines of odd statues above it always catch my eye, but I so rarely go past it I forget about it. Since I was walking past and I had the tripod I thought I may as well finally get a shot of it

Then a few moments further up, next to the recently revamped old Assembly Rooms in George Street the lane running between it and the buildings next to it looked rather good at night and seemed to be begging for a black and white shot, so I had to take one (as ever for larger versions click on the pics to see on the Woolamaloo Flickr):

Another shot from recent night-time round of photo-taking – I was actually taking something else, then noticed if I moved the tripod round a little, perhaps I could fit in the both the spire of Saint Cuthberts and the western flank of Edinburgh Castle. So I had a go and it seemed to work…

Doing some more night shots recently, was drawn to this buzzing neon sign (surely one of the icons of night-time, big city living), zoomed in on it. And then for some reason felt moved to switch to black and white mode and shoot it in monochrome, even though, like most neon signs, it was a vibrantly coloured piece. But I had a feeling it would look cooler in black and white in a night shot, and actually, I think it does:

It’s dreadful – kids ask and ask for them, can we get one, mum and dad, can we, can we? I’ll look after him! Then a few days later, bored, they discard the poor thing and it ends up abandoned on the cold, winter streets. A Minion is for life, people, not just for Christmas, stop the dumping of poor, unloved Minions on our streets!

It’s Edinburgh, it’s a few days before Christmas, and with the short days, long nights and the sun have set before 4 in the afternoon it’s the time of year to enjoy Edinburgh’s nocturnal aspect, and how lovely Edinburgh is in the long, dark, winter nights – here’s the view from North Bridge, which connects Old and New Towns, spanning the valley between them, with the massive Waverley railway station way below (you can see the station’s glowing glass roof on the lower right of this pic; on the far left the Fruitmarket Gallery right above the tracks on the edge of the station, City Art Centre across from it, up towards the centre the domed Bank of Scotland building and behind it Edinburgh Castle standing sentinel above its city. Down on the right, centre the neo-Classical National Gallery of Scotland – as always click to see the larger versions on my Flickr site):

And a close up on Edinburgh Castle at night – if you look at the larger version you can even see people standing on the battlements looking down into the city. This was about twenty minutes after the sun had set, and the western skies were splashed with magnificent reds and purples silhouetting the floodlit Castle for just a few, brief, magical moments, before the skies darken for the long night:

And one more of the Castle, this time taken from down in Princes Street Gardens, which gave me the angle to get Ramsay Gardens (the very expensive apartments right next to the Castle on the left) and the big Christmas tree on the Mound into the shot):

The annual festive fair and market is in the Gardens and the Mound at this time of year. Right by the towering Gothic rocket of the Scott Monument is a huge fairground ride for Christmas, basically like an old chair-o-plane ride on steroids, the difference being when this starts to spin around swinging out the hanging seats below the canopy it goes high – very high. Take a look here – the Monument is over 60 metres in height and you can see the ride goes up only a few metres short of our great literary monument, couldn’t resist trying to get an angle to fit in both, glad dad gave me a small gizmo to mount on top of the tripod, little ball-socket thing that you can loosen and tilt to easily through a variety of angles, very, very handy):

Looking along the lower part of the Gardens towards the flank of the National Galleries of Scotland – the part you can see here, the large, brightly lit plate glass windows are actually underground for the most part. The main building sit on top of the mound, but it extends underneath the plaza in front of the building, including this side which is exposed by the valley of the Gardens, and here there is a cafe, restaurant, meeting rooms and more, plus a connection to the nearby Royal Scottish Academy, which you can see the edge of above and to the right:

And here’s a view of Princes Street Gardens with the festive fair and Christmas market, taken from the steps leading down the Mound:

I love this old double-decker carousel (or gallopers, if you prefer the nice, old terms for such rides), gorgeous looking, ornately decorated piece of work:

Over in Saint Andrew Square there are more market stalls, a circular ice rink in the centre, with a round temporary bar in the middle of the rink, and also this splendid old Spiegeltent theatre:

Here’s a view of the circular ice rink from the small footbridge they added over it:

And there’s an ice rink – a more traditionally shaped one – in the Gardens right by the Scott Monument too:

And of course as well as food and drink stalls there are many selling items of all sorts from clothes to jewelry to, of course, Christmas decorations:

All combines to fairly brighten up the long, cold, dark winter nights.

Down on the coast near North Berwick, short but beautifully golden winter day, sun setting, casting long shadows and warm, copper coloured light over the distinctive triangular shape of North Berwick Law (a major local landmark, it can even be glimpsed from parts of Edinburgh on a good day) as the rising Moon chases the sun from sky:

Walking along the promenade at Portobello, Edinburgh’s seafront, just after sunset, the owner of the Little Green Van was closing up his food and drink stall for the day. I didn’t have the tripod with me as I thought we’d be home before dark, so improvised, sat the camera on the seawall, set the timer on a long exposure and was pretty pleased with the results – not bad considering it was an improvised night shot

A few days ago I took a black and white photograph of a swan on the Union Canal, close to my home in Edinburgh. I’ve taken plenty of shots along the canal, including many of the swans, ducks and other wildlife that enjoy the waters, but this one, for some reason, has proved to be incredibly popular on Flickr. A simple shot, last hour of daylight (sun setting so early this time of year) giving some great reflections, and a swan which instead of paddling along was drifting, slowly, as if gently dozing, or perhaps lost in admiring its own reflection. I lined up to fit in both swan and reflection and took a pic, posted it up one evening last week, to discover by the next evening, less than twenty hours later, it had received over six thousand views. It’s now sitting just a shade under nine thousand. It had, like my recent Edinburgh in Blue Hour shot, made it onto Flickr’s Explore front page, so a lot more people saw it than usual, but even so I’m blown away with how many views, I’ve never had any shot gather to many views in such a short time (and so many favourites too). I’m also slightly puzzled – don’t get me wrong, it’s a lovely picture, but I think I’ve taken many that are far better and they never got that sort of reception. Guess you can never truly predict what people will really like, and I never take a photo with number of views in mind anyway, I take them because I see something interesting, or unusual, or beautiful, and I want to capture a little of it and share it. And if people really like it even more than usual, then I’m quite happy, if slightly puzzled, but certainly happy and satisfied too…

The Remembrance Garden is open in Princes Street Gardens, serried rows of small crosses and poppies lined up in silent regiments around the enormous pillars of the Scott Monument. I took a few photographs last weekend as it was just opening ahead of the Remembrance Sunday weekend this weekend, volunteers from Poppy Scotland were still hammering a few more of the small crosses into the ground:

The smaller crosses are made for people to leave personal messages on – families of the fallen, old comrades and friends, some from conflicts long gone, a relative fallen at Arnhem in WWII, but not forgotten. There is a special section this year for more recent conflicts such as those lost in the Afghanistan campaign, bearing photographs of the fallen:

And there was one which had the simplest but most touching, hearbtreaking message that brought tears to my eyes:

A reminder, if any ever was needed that behind Big Historical Events, behind the bloody-handed politicians who make the decisions but never risk their life or that of their own, always someone else’s son or daughter or husband or wife, behind all the media pundits and their endless analysis filling the 24-hour rolling news discussions, behind all of that, individuals, ordinary people, taken from those who loved them, leaving them behind with a hole in their lives, in their hearts, a grievous wound that they will carry all the rest of their days, those left behind as wounded in their own way as any harmed on a battlefield. Again we can only wonder when the human race will learn.

The Edinburgh City of Literature campaign is celebrating two hundred years of Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley, and the huge Edinburgh railway station which shares that name is currently peppered with quotations from Scott to mark the bicentennial of the famous Scottish novel:

Crossing North Bridge (which spans the deep valley between Edinburgh’s Old Town and the Georgian-era New Town) a few nights ago I noticed that the Castle was illuminated in this deep red shade – as it turned out it was to mark the annual Poppy Appeal leading up to Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday, although given it was the week leading to Halloween the colour scheme worked quite well for that too… I was going from work to my book group, so didn’t have the tripod with me, so improvised, setting up a long exposure on the camera, setting the timer then sitting the camera on the parapet of the bridge. Not ideal – it is angled and with double decker buses rumbling over it frequently it vibrates, not what you want when trying to take a long exposure night shot, took three or four but only this one came out reasonably (click to see larger versions on my Flickr):